Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Phnom Penh, the capital city of the Kingdom of Cambodia, has its history dated back to the early 15th century when the then Khmer King Chao Ponhea Yat moved his administrative base from Angkor city, near Siem Reap, to this tiny town.

...a city with more than 600 years of history...

Today, the tiny town has grown to a big city which covers an area of 375 sq. kilometers or 145 sq. miles (slightly smaller than Stuttgart in Germany or about as big as Dublin in Ireland) and has seven districts, or "Khan" in the local language of Khmer and 76 communes ("Sangkat" in Khmer).

According to Cambodian histories, the name Phnom Penh is taken from a wealthy widow, Daun Penh, who built the Wat Phnom pagoda in the late 1300’s. At that time there were less than 10,000 people inhabiting Chaktomuk, known today as Phnom Penh. The population grew to about 2 million people in 1975, but went down to about 100,000 people after the Khmer Rouge took control of the city and the country. More info on Wat Phnom, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. More info on Khmer Rouge, Cambodia.

Phnom Penh and Cambodia were less impressive to the world of tourism during the Khmer Rouge era. One of the city’s places of interest, Toul Sleng Genocidal Museum, tells the sad story behind this “Pol Pot” era (the leader of Khmer Rouge).

Today there are about 1.5 millions people living in this capital city of the Reach Thani Phnom Penh Municipality and all has changed since. It offers many activities to its people and foreign tourists. These include good Khmer food, entertainment and many interesting places to visit, such as Wat Phnom, the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda, a few monuments, markets, museums, shops, and so on.

...restaurants, shopping, riverfront, art-deco buildings...

The city has also lots of interesting art-deco buildings, which were built during the French colonial era. The famous French-built, art-deco building is the Central Market or Phsar Thom Thmei (in Khmer language). More details of Phsar Thom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

In 2006 Phnom Penh, a sister city of Long Beach and Providence of Rhode Island in USA, won two awards, the First Prize of Leadership in London and the First Prize of Environment in Australia. During the World Leadership Forum in December 2007 in London, which was attended by representatives of 400 cities from many countries, Phnom Penh was awarded the First Prize in Environment.

Good records were also released in a report in 2007. It said that social security and safety in the capital city of Cambodia had improved and were well maintained. The then Governor of Phnom Penh also mentioned that the government would always work on problems concerning safety, drugs, food quality, and other big cities issues.

Only about two hours away from major cities around the region, Phnom Penh and its friendly people are now ready to welcome you to their city and country.